Prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array: Commissioning the Optical System

TL;DR

The prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (pSCT) at the Cherenkov Telescope Array demonstrates advanced optical design with wide field of view and high-resolution imaging, promising significant improvements in gamma-ray astronomy.

Contribution

This work presents the first implementation and commissioning of the Schwarzschild-Couder optical system in a Cherenkov telescope prototype, achieving unprecedented compactness and imaging performance.

Findings

On-axis PSF of 2.9 arcmin achieved

Wide 8-degree field of view demonstrated

Successful first-light detection of Crab Nebula

Abstract

A prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (pSCT) has been constructed at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory as a candidate for the medium-sized telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO). CTAO is currently entering early construction phase of the project and once completed it will vastly improve very high energy gamma-ray detection component in multi-wavelength and multi-messenger observations due to significantly improved sensitivity, angular resolution and field of view comparing to the current generation of the ground-based gamma-ray observatories H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS. The pSCT uses a dual aspheric mirror design with a $9.7$ m primary mirror and $5.4$ m secondary mirror, both of which are segmented. The Schwarzschild-Couder (SC) optical system (OS) selected for the prototype telescope achieves wide field of view of $8$ degrees and simultaneously reduces the focal plane plate scale allowing an unprecedented compact ($0.78$m diameter) implementation of the high-resolution camera ($6$mm/ $0.067$deg per imaging pixel with $11,328$ pixels) based on the silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs). The OS of the telescope is designed to eliminate spherical and comatic aberrations and minimize astigmatism to radically improve off-axis imaging and consequently angular resolution across all the field of view with respect to the conventional single-mirror telescopes. Fast and high imaging resolution OS of the pSCT comes with the challenging submillimeter-precision custom alignment system, which was successfully demonstrated with an on-axis point spread function (PSF) of $2.9$ arcmin prior to the first-light detection of the Crab Nebula in 2020. Ongoing and future commissioning activities are reported.